By Chris Woodward
The case involves the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or “Obamacare.”
At issue is whether the controversial health care law can stand after Congress and President Trump zeroed out the tax penalty for Americans not having health insurance via the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
Critics of the Affordable Care Act are optimistic the justices will strike down the health care law, given that Chief Justice John Roberts upheld the law based on the tax penalty in a decision that was heavily criticized at the time.
Biden, meanwhile, says people with COVID-19 should not lose their health insurance because it could be viewed as a pre-existing condition, and the ACA was created to help people get coverage even if they have a pre-existing condition.
"Biden is implying that insurance companies would drop people with coverage and they can't do that," advises Merrill Matthews, Ph.D. of the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI). "Prior to the law, insurance companies could not drop you just because you had a medical condition, and that was virtually true of all states and the federal plans as well.”
Matthews points out that "millions” of Americans lost their own health insurance coverage because of the Affordable Care Act, which cancelled those plans if they failed to meet the requirements in the new law.
Merrill's wife was among the people that lost their health insurance as a result of the ACA, he tells OneNewsNow.
The earliest the Supreme Court could take up the latest case would be October when the next term is scheduled to begin.
If that happens, a decision from the justices may not come until May or June of 2021.
Republican leaders in Congress should anticipate that court decision next year, Merrill adds, so it’s “imperative” that they come up with a popular plan to replace it after fighting Obamacare since it became law.